supporttheunderdog wrote:Get Real! wrote:Gasman wrote:Have just been reading that you are not strictly a Greek Cypriot unless one of your parents is Greek and the other is Cypriot?
Change your sources because you've been reading a lot of bollocks lately!
A “Greek Cypriot” is just a label or classification if you like, of Ottoman origin. In the eyes of the Ottomans there were just three types of people on Cyprus…
1. Eastern Orthodox were regarded “Greeks”.
2. Muslims were regarded "Turks"
3. Catholics were regarded "Latins."
Good point: I am persoannly of the view that the labels Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot are at least partly misleading, less so for the so-called Turkish Cypriots, where I understand it is likely many can trace are descended from the 16th Century invaders, but possibly more so for the so called Greek Cypriots, probabaly few of whom have ancestors who came from Greece, I suspect the "GC side" in particular, are more likely to be decended from those who have lived in Cyprus for 10000 years, or so. I understand the Greek written lanhguage probably only really took hold in the period around 400 BC, not following the alleged Mycenean invasion some 800 - 1000 years before.
The Orthodox Church only came along in 363 AD or so, due to political reasons, when imposed by the Byzantine Emporers.
I suspect the emphasis on the Greekness of the GC and Turkishness of the TC is to a large extent a modern myth used to promote particular policies such as Enosis or Takism, and divide and rule by the Brits.
For the avoidance of doubt I am not seeking to denigrate the Culture of either the Greek speaking or the Turkish speaking Cypriots.
What i would suggest is however to promote the unique Cypriotness of the Cypriot peoples., which has been suppressed by mainly outside influences.
You don't know the history of our island good enough.
Greece is a nation made of several 1000s islands (including 100s of inhabited islands). If you assumed that "Greece" means just "mainland Greece", then you are making a wrong assumption. Cyprus is no different than any other Greek island. The
ONLY difference is that the self determination of the people of our island was denied by foreign imperialists who wanted to keep the Greek nation divided and Cyprus under their control in order to serve their own interests.
We don't need ancestors coming from some other part of Greece, because Cyprus
is Greece, and part of Greek world even thought it was
forced to be a separate country.
The equivalent would be if I wrongly assumed that England is just London and based on this faulty assumption I made the argument that Liverpudlians are not English because their ancestors didn't come from London.
For the Greek civilization Cyprus is not merely a destination, but one of its
origins.
In Cyprus we used the Cypriot syllabic script to write Greek from the 12 century BC. We couldn't use the Greek alphabet back then because it hadn't been invented yet. In fact some very notable scientists claim that it is the Cypriots who invented the Greek alphabet to write their own (Greek) language in a time when the mainland Greeks were illiterate people living in the dark ages:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 151297.php
Our "Cypriotness" can not be suppressed by our "Greekness". Thats the same as saying that your "Englishness" can suppress your "Londoness".
In Cyprus we have ethnic minorities just like every other place. The problem is not our "Greekness" but the fact that certain imperialists use the TC minority on the island as their pawns to serve their own interests.
